CBS ESP Trip: Gothenburg & Oslo

At CBS, the Exchange Social Program (ESP) coordinates a few trips throughout the semester for exchange students. You pay a flat rate for your ticket, and they provide you with transportation and lodging; usually, hotel breakfast is included but other meals are your own responsibility. This past weekend was the first ESP trip of the semester. They hired a tour bus for the weekend and took approximately 50 students (myself included) to Gothenburg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway. Here's the official itinerary from our trip, so you can see the logistics:

Tour of Scandinavia itinerary.pdf

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I signed up for this trip mainly for the convenience factor. Being so close to Sweden and Norway, I almost felt obligated to visit at some point. But honestly, they weren't too high on my list of places to go; don't get me wrong, they're great, but I just felt more drawn to other places when looking at possible travel opportunities. That's why this trip worked well for me: it was short, I still got to see Sweden and Norway, and I didn't have to do any planning. It was nice just being along for the ride. Of course, there were some things I might have done differently if I was the one doing the planning; there are definitely pros and cons to a group trip. I'll list them below, so you can decide if a group trip might work well for you:

Pros	Cons
Convenience!!! (transport especially)	A lot of time is spent traveling/on the road
Great way to meet other students	Feeling rushed in a city/not enough time
Combination of structured itinerary and free time	In some places, most businesses are closed on Sundays (common in Sweden)
ESP organizers provide suggestions of what to see in each city (and a club or bar for going out)	Hotel rooms are pretty cramped; and the beds are really close together (which can be a little awkward if you don't know your roommate)
Activities are optional, so you don't have to do them if you don't want to	Waking up early; not much sleep if you went out the night before
Trips seem reasonably priced; cost was 2049 DKK which is roughly $323 USD	Breaks weren't long enough for everyone to get snacks, use the bathroom, etc.

Overall, this worked well for me because I wasn't going to one of my top destinations. If I was, I would want the freedom of planning my trip myself, even if that means traveling alone. For instance, on the way back we stopped in Smögen, Sweden. Smögen is a summer beach town, and it was a Sunday in February, so basically everything was closed. That said, I did still have a good time and met some new people! (I probably would have skipped Smögen, though)

The best part of the trip was definitely the Norwegian fjord tour; Gothenburg did have some really fun seesaws, though! (The worst part was seeing a rat on the sidewalk in Oslo😭) Gothenburg was nice, but fairly snowy when we were there; I felt like there was more to do in Oslo. That's all for now, check out my pictures from this weekend below!

Gothenburg

Oslo